Blog

No. 27 SÃO PAULO

I recently traveled back to my home city of São Paulo. I was only back for a week, but I managed to take my Fujifilm Klasse W, a roll of Cinestill 800T and two of Portra 400

Within the heart of the city, like many other urban metropolis, is a large park, Ibirapuera

Ibirapuera comes from the Tupi-Guarani language spoken by many of the tribes who occupied the land before the Portuguese landed in 1500. Ibirapuera roughly translates to "old trees" which is a pretty awesome name for a park if you ask me.

The park was designed by famous Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer and the equally famous landscape designer Roberto Burlemarx. If you are sensing an influence of Japanese architecture you would be right. Brasil has the largest Japanese population outside of Japan, and the bambo grove and cast-iron bridge are a testament to that influence

Niemeyer's architecture pays homage to the people who named the park, and the original occupiers of the land we today call Brasil. The "Oca" is an multi-level museum/gallery that imitates the traditional hut built by the Tupi people.

I got lucky that there wasn't an exhibition going on at the moment and apparently they open the space up to the public while it is empty! I had no idea, if you're in the area I highly recommend it, the upper floor is engineered in such a way to maximize echo, it sounds amazing!!

The structure that stretches outside of the Oca is equally impressive, with its huge slab roof perched seemingly precariously on a few well placed support beams

I hope you guys enjoyed the change of pace this week, I'm back in New York and back to shooting my Leica, If you have any requests as to a film, technique, or location you would like to see in the coming weeks please let me know!